


Heroes

by winterlive



Series: Future Legend [3]
Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Disturbing Themes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-07
Updated: 2011-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 11:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterlive/pseuds/winterlive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody was ready.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heroes

"Incoming!!"

The smell of smoke is stinging up their noses, stabbing at the very center of their heads. Night is pressing in around them, the moon high overhead; they're stuck in the mess tent at the heart of the base and they're not getting out. Defense perimeter was breached a half hour ago and it was pure insanity. Nobody was ready. Nobody's coming. The few soldiers left in the tent are all that's left.

A lone man in fatigues goes tearing across the tarmac in a last ditch effort to get inside, where it's safe. The smoking street does not explode in gunfire. The monsters do not come, this time. He makes it to the tent flap screaming his name and rank ( _Private Calley First Class!!_ ) and leaps inside. He hits the good side of the fifty-fifty chance he had of being shot dead regardless; apparently somebody with sense is still alive in there.

Outside the tent, nothing moves.

"Calley!" shouts a voice. They're under cover in there, not moving so there's no chance of shadows being thrown against the outside canvas. "Ass to the ground!"

Calley does that, his weapon rattling against concrete. He crawls along to their hole, and there's a round of shoulder patting and relief. One more saved from the chaos out there seems like a blessing. "What's the situation out there?" asks a senior officer, his voice gruff.

The new man is just a kid; his voice wobbles when he answers. "Fucking pandemonium, sir. There are isolated pockets of resistance, but from what I could see..."

"Spit it out, son."

Calley coughs. "The civvies are done, sir, there's nobody in the streets."

Another man speaks up, voice roughened by years of abuse. "If they'd followed anything like fucking procedure, maybe they'd be here instead of fucking _food_ for those animals. I saw 'em being herded up."

"What about the soldiers?" asks the officer.

Calley is silent for a moment. "Some... sir, some of them defected."

There is silence again, horrified disbelief. _"Defected?"_

"That's what I saw," Calley says, the words tripping over one another. "Guys in fatigues, _our guys,_ rounding up civilians. And they weren't touched, sir. The fucking cannibals ran right by 'em, I saw it with my own _fucking_ eyes."

Outside the tent, there is a flicker of movement. Nobody sees it, because betrayal is distracting, and they're busy glaring at each other. That's why it takes them a while to notice.

"Do you hear that?" asks one, his voice low.

"What?"

"I don't hear anything."

"...Exactly."

The gunfire, the screaming is gone. There is no more scuffling. Even the crackling of fires seems to have stopped. Somewhere distant is the sound of the surf against the shore.

Into this silence comes the first hollow, melodic howl.

"What the fuck?" someone hisses.

Another one answers in the same whisper. "They're just trying to scare us, man, fucking hold it together."

"Well, it's fucking working!"

Outside the tent, a white apparition steps out of the shadows. A long coat, draping down to the knees, and white hands with black claws. Body of a man, head of a dog. The soldiers shout and form up, blinking through the sights of their rifles.

"I got the shot!" someone hollers.

"Take it! Jesus!"

Gunfire rips through the silence, flashing inside the tent. Bullets slam into the white thing and it doesn't move, bits of fabric flaying off in puffs of moonlight.

"Ceasefire!" shouts a soldier. "It's a fucking dummy, hold your ammo!"

A whisper this time, over the clicks and snaps of reloading magazines. "Clever fucking bastards, fucking smart sons of bitches."

"They're just gonna keep doing it," says Private Calley, youthful and afraid. "They're gonna run us out of bullets and then they're gonna come in here-"

"Shut up," snaps the officer. "Shut the fuck up."

The dummy slides away, back into the darkness like a ghost. Nobody's moving it. It just floats into blackness.

"Come out!" the officer shouts. "Fucking show yourselves!"

Right across the front of the tent goes a shadow, black and silver and gray, streaking movement that moves their tent flap. The soldiers flinch and yell, losing what control they had; someone opens fire, and the bullets tear the canvas up, leaving a big gap in the front of the tent near the door. More of the street shows, and it's just as still and empty as before.

"I hit it, I know I fucking hit it."

"You just fucked our shelter, you asshole!"

"Shut up!"

A series of weird sounds interrupt them, something animal and high-pitched. Like cats barking. "Hyenas," one soldier says in a strangled whisper. "I heard 'em on the Discovery Channel."

"They're not fucking hyenas," someone spits back, but he doesn't sound sure.

Then there's a shuffle. "Radar!" hisses one of the soldiers, as another one gets up and walks calmly outside the tent, his arms up to his sides. "Radar, what the fuck are you doing!"

"I just want to talk!" Radar calls out into the silence. His voice echoes, somewhere in the distance.

The other soldiers watch a shadow slam into Radar's side, that black and silver shadow. Radar is gone in an instant, and they hear his scream, cut short by a meaty thump. Again, silence settles over the street.

"You motherfuckers!!" One of the soldiers in the tent screams it at the street, past endurance.

Proper howls answer him, but this time from barely a few feet away. They're surrounding the tent, they're everywhere, and every soldier aims his shaking weapon at the flimsy canvas walls. The officer shouts again and again to hold fire, hold your fucking fire! The stink of sweat is in the air, tension singing through every trigger finger.

One of the fabric walls bellies in, like one of the demons outside is brushing it with its claws.

They break. Bullets rip through canvas, and then someone on semi-auto blasts out a support pole. The tent comes down on their heads, smothering them; though some manage to get a few rounds off, it takes just seconds for invisible boots to slam into their sides, invisible hands to take their guns. Long, sharp knives poke through the canvas over their eyes, ripping it open; the faces of their captors are shadowed and terrible in the colorless moonlight. The eyes are empty holes, the mouths and chins blackened with gore or worse. Sharp teeth snap as the creatures haul the soldiers to their feet, close enough to force a flinch. There are no words, no orders; they just fucking growl. They're not even human any more.

The soldiers are hauled out of the tent's wreckage and bound, hands tied behind them with strips of cloth and leather. The creatures stand guard over them, behind them, Air Force rifles in their filthy hands. They force the soldiers to look forward with guns in their backs and shoves to the head. In front of them, the dummy in the pristine white coat comes out of the shadows again, his dog's head long and angular on his shoulders. But this time, he steps out by another foot, and they can see his legs, see him move. This time, he's _real_.

"No," says one man, as the reek of piss fills the air. "No, no, no, no."

"Fuck you," spits the officer. "Fuck you, you son of a bitch."

To the dog-thing's side, another being steps out, smaller and more compact. His face is human, though all in shadow, and his coat is black with silver buttons. The blur at the tent flap.

This person walks toward them, into the light, and is revealed: there is nothing sprouting from his head, nothing curving horribly at his back or waist, and he has both his eyes. His boots are just boots, his hands are just hands. His face is human. In one hand, he carries a long, curved knife that glints silver in the moonlight. He approaches the officer, on the far right of the line, and takes the man by the hair at the top of his head. Leaning in, he forces the officer to look at him.

The flash of recognition is fast on the officer's face, and horror spreads after it. _"...Allen?"_

If the name means anything, the man in black doesn't show it. "Listen now," he whispers, and the other soldiers strain to hear - the first words any of these things have used. "You've lost. You're finished. We are the law here, and you are here, so you will obey. This is our place, these are our people, and this," he says, leveling his knife at the god in white, standing still as a statue. "This is the king. We kneel before the king."

The officer ducks his head, and spits full into the shadowed face. "Go fuck yourself, Allen. And your little dogs, too."

The flash of the knife is instant and brutal. The sick squelch of it is loud in the silence, as is the strangled cry that ends in a wet gurgle. The man in black doesn't stop moving, sawing through muscle and sinew. One of the very young soldiers - it's Private Calley - spins around and throws up at the feet of his captor. He sinks to the ground, falls on his side, tremors running through his body. "I'm kneeling," he sobs, pressing his face to the pavement. The guard reaches out with his vomit-smeared boot to push Calley back in line, though it's more of an instruction than a kick. Calley turns as he's told, still on his knees, his voice helpless and shaking. "He's the king," Calley says, his voice shaking and his head bowed. "He's the king."

The man in black finishes his sick work, and the officer's body topples to the ground. The man in black grips the dripping head by its limp hair; in his other hand, the long silver blade drips gore to the pavement. He looks at the next soldier in line and lifts the bloody knife, pointing it at him. The soldier crashes to his knees immediately, pressing his palms to the ground and bowing his head. "He's the king."

The man in black nods, his face blank and unmoved, flecks of the officer's blood dotted on his cheek. "We kneel," he says, pointing down the line with his knife. The other soldiers sink to the pavement together, dropping their heads.

The man in black tosses the officer's head toward its body; it rolls a little ways beyond it and stops in a pool of blood.

One of the soldiers chokes out a whisper. "God help us."

Suddenly, the king moves. He crosses the empty street, coming toward them. When he reaches them, he reaches up to his furred head and takes - takes his mask off. It's only a mask, the dog's head; underneath, the King is human. His face is fantastical, even beautiful, a fairy prince of a face that sparkles like stars.

When they've all seen him, he turns to the man in black. Gently, the king takes the wicked knife out of his fingers and kisses him, right on the mouth. "That's enough," he says, and his voice is so kind.

The man in black looks at the king with a world of feeling in his face. He looks savage, and angry, and tired, and sad. He nods and turns away, and then he's gone away, melted back into the shadows.

The merciful king hands the bloody knife off to one of their guards. He walks down the line of soldiers and looks into their faces one at a time, lifting their chins with his fingers as though they're naughty children. "I'll give you a choice," he says, his voice soft. "Confess to me everything you've done - everything - and swear to me that you'll never do it again. Swear to live by my rules, and to spend the rest of your lives protecting me and my people. Do that, and I'll spare your lives. Fail me, even once, and I'll give you back to _him_."

The king points a gloved hand at the trail of bloody footprints left by the man in black.

It takes the rest of the night, and one more soldier dies. But in the end, new Dogs are born, and war is over... at least for now.

**Author's Note:**

> done for the ontd_ai dollar drive for the houston area women's center, which provides support to survivors of domestic violence. part of an organized effort on behalf of terri sanvincente, aka glitteraquarius, god rest her.


End file.
